Something like homesickness

This morning I was walking along to the elementary school in my fleece jacket, picking my way down the cracked road.  It was warm but tiny lines rain (which they call "pelito de gato" or "little cat hairs") fell all around my face and everything was still, the way the country always is.  When I got to the school, a girl in my sixth grade class was unlocking the gate for a younger girl with a white bow on her head, so I slipped in.  The older girl led me to the director's office, where I was told that my class had been canceled for the day.

So I walked home with the stray dog, a thick-bodied lab who usually lies in the rocks outside the pulpería (the convenience store.)  I was in a good mood, kicking up rocks and left completely to myself.  I think it was the roughness of the pavement, the gaping potholes, that made me remember the smoothness of I-81 in Virginia.  This of course evoked images of America, of all the cars driving on roads with paved lines and guard rails, which seems both comforting and a little mad in its organization.  I could feel myself missing the roads (a silly thing to miss, I suppose), but I think the roads were some sort of symbol for everything about the U.S. that I feel homesick for.  Most of the time I don't think about it because I live in a house of people who speak to each other in English and who have recently lived in the states.  But I miss the roads I've always driven on: 340 and Old Liberty and Patton Farm.  How is it a chunk of crumbling road can make me miss home?  I don't even feel homesick until I let myself feel it.  And it almost feels good to sit in homesickness and swish it around a bit, the way I do in a bath.  Because, just like hot water, it makes you think of pleasant memories and familiar places.  But, just like a bath, the water becomes lukewarm and cloudy after a while and then you have to get out.

Sitting here upstairs on the bench in the high-ceiling wooden house, I'm brought back into this summer internship as I listen as downstairs Tomás excitedly talks about a project.  I remember my cold toes.  I feel like I have to write down this moment just as it is to ground myself and to so that when I sit in my bedroom at home, I can remember how I sat here in a grey day as Frances poured something into a pan.  I hear sizzling, just for a moment, and then everything falls back into a familiar hush.

An almost sunny work day

I woke up early yesterday and sat at the bar eating Corn Flakes while reading about Tonga in the National Geographic.  It wasn't sunny exactly, but warm enough to make me glad.  Ben came in the kitchen as I was reading about the lazy prince of Tonga and ate cereal too.  He told me he wasn't sure we could paint the house because the sun hadn't come out.

Tomás walked in a little later, cheerful and wearing work jeans.  I went to change into jeans too, and came back out to help with the work.  The sun poked out a bit, more of a grey-yellow presence than sunny, but I felt happy in my tanktop, dipping a roller into paint.  After rolling several boards with a thick shade of papaya, Angeley and Frances came out and when we put on the stereo from inside, Taylor Swift came through the boards of the house.  I kept painting and grinning.  It felt a bit like a Virginia summer morning.

Ups and downs and what I've been up to down here

So I realize that not only have I done a great job at updating my blog, but I haven’t talked a whole lot about what exactly I’m doing here.  When I’m not working on writing or translating something for the ADE website, I am teaching.  Every time I tell someone that I am an English major, that person almost always responds with, “Oh so you want to be a teacher?”  And then I have to explain that no, I want to be a writer.  But I love serving, being with children, and I have known so many wonderful teachers, that I have always felt it kept it in the back-up plan section in the back of my mind. 


I’ve been teaching an English class and a creative writing class at the high school, four English classes at the elementary school, and a Sunday school class for toddlers, as well as helping out two days a week with an English conversation class for adults.  I work with the whole range of ages, from the little boy at church who mutters in slurred, soft-spoken Spanish and still wobbles when she walks, to Andrea, a woman around ten years older than me with dark eyes and a beautiful strength about her.
I must admit though, that teaching is not always satisfying and very rarely glamorous.  It makes you mind-tired, kick off your shoes and sink into the bed tired (or is it only so exhausting because I have to teach in another language?)  It makes me think about my high school geometry teacher, the one with a voice that pinched and who charged a quarter every time anyone dropped a calculator, and makes me wonder if teaching was how she became so bitter.  (And what did she do with all those quarters anyway?)  


I’m exaggerating and to be honest, nothing lifts me up like walking into the sixth-grade classroom and hearing eight voices say, “Hallo!”  Don’t tell the other classes, but these guys are my favorite.  They are young enough and driven enough that the lessons can imprint on them and just old enough for me to play a game with them in class without feeling guilty for not giving them a dry assignment.  Yesterday, we played “I spy with my little eye” (no one could really say the word “little,” but hey, you can’t win them all), but everyone’s favorite is the slap game.  The slap games entails forming two groups, lining up, and, after I say the vocab word in Spanish, sprinting to slap the word in English.  Education and exercise – you’re welcome, kids.  They have learned basic phrases, the days of the week, and the colors through the slap game and I’m proud to say we have no injuries to report yet.


Being a teacher has been just as frustrating as it has been rewarding, which seems to mirror my time here.  There have been cold days, the sort of mountain cold that gets trapped in the bones of your fingers and buries itself in your hair and makes you realize that even your eyelids are cold.  There was today, where I sat on a clump of grass outside the tin-roofed school beside Lauren and we just talked, letting the warmth sink into our jeans.  There was the day we had creative writing class where my shouts of “Escuchen!” were drowned out by scraping chairs and raucous laughter and I fought back tears all class.  There have been times where I’ve had one arm around my host sister, Daniela, the two of us laughing not because anything is all that funny, but because it feels so good to laugh together.  And I’ve been learning that it doesn’t much matter if you’re a teacher or an engineer of if you’re in Virginia or Costa Rica.  Even though there will always be times when you wish you were somewhere else, there will always be times when you know there’s no place you’d rather be.

Father's Day

This past Sunday in church, Tomás stood at the front of the little tin-roofed church and bowed his head.  “Padre celestial,” he opened, and I lost myself so fully in the beauty and relevancy of those two words (“heavenly father”) on Father’s Day that I heard nothing more.  The congregation started whispering their own prayers, phrases like “Ohhh Dios” overlapping each other and rising like a stream, creating something close to madness or the Pentecost, which for some is the same thing.  

Later that night before I fell asleep, I muttered those two words, wandering at their effect on me.  “Heavenly” elicits images of skies full with stars, of the golden light of morning; “father” stirs up memories of me riding on Dad’s shoulders or crying into his shirt.  And I felt so filled with the wonder of those words together and how God gave me a piece of the heavens, a piece of Himself as the Father, through my own father. 

Of all the fathers I could have ended up with, I have the one who loves to laugh, the one who plays soccer with his kids when he really just wants to nap, the one who, at every church luncheon, brings drinks to the elderly women.  I have the father who loves me through the times when I am selfish or stubborn and even though he doesn’t love me perfectly, he loves me in a way that is perfect in that it is through the Father himself.

The Wonderful ADE Staff

So I was going to write a little blurb about each person on the permanent staff of ADE, but I wanted to use some of their own words too, so I copied this from the website (my words are in Italics under each picture):

Tomás Enrique Dozier Zahner

 General Director, Community Director

Geology (Occidental College, California)

Education (Holy Names University)

Masters in International Development (Eastern University)

Educator for past 18 years and fanatic of Gallo Pinto, 

Cafe Chorreado, tortillas palmeadas, and chilero

Tomás always offers you coffee, and then will sit and drink a cup with you, never letting on that he is late for a meeting.  He is a friend to everyone, eager to laugh, teach, and give thanks to God in everything.  And for some reason, he reminds me a little of my Uncle Jay.

Chelsea Dozier

Writer

English and Comparative World Literature, Psychology (Occidental College, California)

Spanish (Spanish Language Institute)

Counseling Certificate (Family Ministries and FPCB)

English professor/instructor for 15 years

Homeschool mother of three wonderful children

Trilingual, Aerobics instructor, Enjoys playing violin

Even though she is busy teaching at the ADE high school and homeschooling her own children, she still has overflowing patience and good cheer.  She has a full and wonderful laugh, an eagerness to share with others (and a giant book shelf, which makes for a good combination in my opinion), and a certain glow about her.

Lindsey Miller

Director of International Coordination

Public and Urban Affairs: International Development, 

Political Science, Mathematics (Virginia Tech)

Internship United Nations (Vienna, Austria)

Has a german shepherd puppy named "Ash Esperanza" 

or "Ashes" for short

Lindsey is one of those people who seems to know who they are and stays faithful to that, which is something that I have always admired.  She is pretty darn funny, even though she doesn't think she is, a hardworker, and pure of heart.  And a Hokie, so she gets extra points :)

 Ben Runyon

Director of Sustainable Development

Biblical Studies, Social Science (Bethel College, IN)
Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management (Northeastern University, MA)
MBA Urban Economic Development (Eastern University, PA)

Likes sports, books, food that is not vegetables, the beach, and may
or may not enjoy dancing salsa

Ben is a good sport for being the only guy in the house (we like to call him "dad" and Frances "mom.")  He has a great sense of humor and a strong work ethic - and he's tall, so he can reach all the cups on the top shelf for us.

Frances Joy Santiago

Director of Sustainable Development

Latin American Studies: Political Science and Sociology (Hood College, MD)

MA Urban Development (Eastern University, PA)

High school Spanish teacher for four years

Addicted to travel, style blogs, dark chocolate and young-adult
fiction books and is trying to learn to sew

Frances is beautiful, stylish, and full of personality.  She has traveled all over the world, is constantly reading, is completely fluent in Spanish (she was born in Puerto Rico) and makes spicy, delicious meals. 

Kiku Runyon Santiago (Ben and Frances' dog)

Fluent in English and Spanish
Traveled in four states and Puerto Rico
Enjoys long walks in the park
Hates bicycles

And now we have 2 little kittens, Pirata and Elefante, both gray striped and blue-eyed (Kiku doesn't seem to accept the new family members and has been acting like a first-born jealous of a new brother and sister, which, as you can imagine, is pretty hilarious.)

Blog post #2 for ADE

http://blog.glocalade.org/

Inspiration from Mother Teresa

This is one of my all-time favorite quotes and I've been thinking about it recently, so I thought I would share it with you all:

“People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.  If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.  If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway.  If you are honest and sincere, people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.  What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.  If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.  The good you do today will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.  Give the best you have and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.  In the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.”
-Mother Teresa

I think that as an American, or maybe just as a human being, this is hard for me to follow.  Why should I do anything if it will not change, and if my efforts will not matter, then isn't it worthless?  If I teach the children at school about themes and metaphors and similes and they retain nothing, I will feel as if I have failed, and in some sense that is true.  But the important thing is not success, the important thing is for me to do everything I can for them - not for my own gain or even for theirs, but for the Lord.  Even if we never see the fruits of our labor, God calls us to keep creating and loving and finding joy in all things.  And as we do, we come closer to His heart, which is perhaps the greatest success of all.

Rainy Days

It’s funny how things can flip so suddenly.  Sometime between Saturday morning and today, slivers of homesickness wormed their way inside me.  The little things make me miss people, like the other day when I was eating pineapple.  I imagined how Josh would sit on the stool next to me, how I would tip the Tupperware in his direction and say, “Want some?”  And then we would sit and eat in silence until our tongues started stinging.  Or whenever I put on the watch with the white leather band that Grandma gave me, I wonder what she is doing in that exact moment and maybe if we are ever thinking of each other at the same time.  I miss phone conversations with Ben because he's always been so good at that older-brother wisdom thing and I miss walking down the hall and flopping next to Dad and lying there with the T.V. going softly.  Or I think of how good it would be to have Audrey sit in my bed next to me, curl up under the Pooh Bear blanket, and read our devotionals together.  And most of the time I miss Mom, because she is the one who always listens to stories that would bore anyone else and takes the time to write me nice, long emails.  I even miss the things that don’t matter much, like smooth roads and hot water in the sink and texting.

Today, a cold front blew in sheets of grey rain and the only way I could get warm was by putting on several layers and curling up into a ball under the blankets on my bed.  I think all the cold and drabness of today made the distance between here and warm Virginia seem unbearably far.  But I am still happy and am learning how to live with people who are different, how to wash dishes with a cheerful spirit when the water is so icy, and – most importantly of all – how to peel and slice a papaya J Mostly, I’ve been learning (well, God has been teaching me) patience, one of the virtues that didn’t get passed on to me.  It’s difficult teaching a class, particularly in Spanish, and I had to employ a great deal of patience the other day as I floundered about trying to explain metaphors and similes.  So I guess all I’m trying to say is that I miss you all.  And I’m almost grateful for days of cold and homesickness because those are the days when I remember my blessings and when God feels nearest.

No snail mail, but...

Sadly, I don't have an address because the mail doesn't come up here to Varablanca.  But what I would love for you to send even more than letters, is prayers.  Or if you want to help donate books to the children, please contact me because there are no public libraries and there are few textbooks, so ADE is slowly building a school library.  Thank you all so much for the ways you've already supported and encouraged me!

Highlight Reel

Here are some snippets from the past two weeks, which I wanted to write about individually, but haven't had the time.

·      The truck rally: the whole town and more showed up on a rainy Sunday to watch trucks racing on a mud track (the national champion of Costa Rica came and creamed everyone, of course)

·      Staying 4 nights at my host family’s home: Michell, Daniela, and I watched 2 of the Lord of the Rings movies and when I told them I had always wanted sisters, they said I could be theirs)

14-year-old Daniela on the left & 17-year-old, Michell on the right

·      Frances’ cooking (she uses all sorts of spices like curry and garlic and makes flavorful, unique dishes that waft up the stairs and settle in our nostrils before dinner each night)

·      Being in a little town in the mountains, because it makes me think of being home in Stuarts Draft

·      Having a Pooh bear quilt in my room

·      Visiting a coffee plantation, tasting a sweet red coffee bean, and drinking freshly-grinded coffee (I think I have drunk more coffee in the last two weeks than in my whole life)

·      Hiking up to Volcán Poas

·      Standing under waterfalls, seeing monkeys, butterflies, jaguars, toucans, and more at La Paz

·      Touring local farms (and getting a free sample of the juiciest strawberry I’ve ever tasted)

·      Getting to know the children in the community, who love to laugh, tickle, and hug, and show love in endless ways

Gabi's 16th birthday part at school

·      Playing soccer in the gym with the kids after school 
·      “Sledding:” riding down a hill in a plastic trash can with Michell (even though my jeans are still stained with dirt)

·      Speaking Spanish (although this should probably be on the “lowlight reel list” too, since I can be pretty awkward sometimes)

·      Having time to read and write, to be in creation, and to be in fellowship

A little stream by the coffee plantation

·      Looking out the window to an incredible view of rolling mountains, a volcano, or endless hills of wild plants

·      Feeling needed and called and loved by the Lord and altogether surrounded by His presence

Morning Musings

I slept in for the first time since arriving and woke up into a gorgeous day, all sun and breeze and wild mountain beauty.  My clothes were sitting in the washer ready to be hung out to dry in the sun (which has been sadly missing for the whole time I’ve been here) and I could hear the pan sizzling as Ben made pancakes for Frances’ birthday.  And Lauren, another intern who’s my age and really sweet, is moving in today so I’ll have another roommate.  So I thought that while I sit in the company of the daisies and the hypatia bushes and the little stream over by the pump, I could spend a little time writing about pieces from my first two weeks here.

My first impression of Costa Rica, which I consider to be the moment when I first stepped outside of the airport into the city, is sort of bleached and incomplete because I was too concerned with finding the bench where I was supposed to meet Chelsea.  But there was the bench right outside the door, and before I could even consider sitting down to wait, there was Chelsea.  She was slim, Korean, a naturally beautiful woman with little or no make-up and her hair pulled back casually.  “Leigh Anne?” she asked, with a genuine smile, and when I said yes, she pulled me into a motherly hug.  I liked her at once.   

Her two youngest children, Nadia and Nathan, helped pull along my suitcases and then we got into a beat-up red car and drove through the city, where memories of Quito, of beggars and loud Spanish and dust, slammed into my mind.  I was quiet for most of the drive up into the mountins because, even though I didn’t feel too out-of-place, I could feel something invisible and weighty inside me slowly starting to shift.  Even sitting in the passenger seat on my first day in Costa Rica, twisting through a land wild with green in a car full of strangers,  I knew that the summer would change me.  Which is in some ways the most terrifying part, that the self I had before leaving will shed off in a ghostly layer and never come back.

I’m not sure that makes any real sense, but I thought I’d take this beautiful morning to write to you all and let you know that although being a stranger to a place, culture, and language sometimes makes me feel foolish, I am genuinely happy here in Varablanca.  And it somehow feels that I’ve always been here.  Or no, it feels that I was meant to be in this rainy jungle town with these very people in these very months and that things are coming together just as they ought to be.

My 1st blog post for the ADE website

http://blog.glocalade.org/2011/06/dr-ebenezers-technology-for-poor.html